


what keeps us awake at night

by EllaYuki



Category: CLAMP - Works, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Blood and Injury, Domestic, Dreams and Nightmares, Kurogane POV, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Nihon Country, Post-Canon, mentions of - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 05:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13206918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllaYuki/pseuds/EllaYuki
Summary: as they try to fall asleep one night, fai and kurogane talk about their dreams and their nightmares.





	what keeps us awake at night

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: mentions of blood and stuff like that. set post-canon, after they’ve settled in nihon. 
> 
> a/n #2: The lack of capital letters is INTENTIONAL. All fics written by me in 2017 are like that, so if that puts you off, I'm sorry and you are more than welcome to back out now. (AKA: Please STOP MENTIONING IT, it will NOT change. Thank you.)

'tell me, kuro-sama, what do you dream about?’

kurogane opens his eyes slowly, and looks at his husband in the low light of their room. it’s past midnight, and failed is usually asleep by this point, but now it seems that sleep eludes him.

'what do you mean?’ he asks, and turns on  his side to face fai properly, give him his full attention.

fai trails the tip of a finger on the sheet by his pillow, laying on his stomach like he usually does when he tries to fall asleep. 'i mean,’ he says, quietly, 'when you sleep, what are your dreams like? what are they about? are they about your family? are they about people you know, or our travels? or are they abstract things that make no sense no matter how you look at them?’

kurogane is quiet for a long moment, thinking, wondering what brought this on, but not feeling like actually asking for once. fai will tell him what’s bothering him. he does that now.

he hums. 'i guess it depends.’ he shrugs. 'from the little i remember of them, they vary from day to day.’ he raises a hand, the prosthetic one, and brushes a few errand strands out of fai’s face. 'sometimes there are good dreams,’ he continues. 'memories of my childhood, or of the kids. or things I wish could have happened.’

fai raises an inquiring eyebrow at that, so kurogane explains. 'i mean, my parents seeing me become the man I am today. having all the kids alive and well, instead of just the two… seeing you and mother sitting on the porch, weaving spells, in suwa. things like that.’

fai lets out a shaky breath, and kurogane wishes there was more light than the one coming from the mostly full moon outside. he wishes he could see fai’s face properly in this moment.

'do you-’ fai starts, stops. he bites his lip, starts again. ‘what about nightmares?’

and somehow, deep down, kurogane knew that’s what this is really about. 'i have those, too,’ he says. 'obviously, with everything that’s happened.’

fai lifts his head a bit, and then wiggles himself closer, buries his head under kurogane’s ching. ‘tell me?’ he asks, and kurogane lets out a breath. he wraps his arm against fai.

‘if it’s not the destruction of my home,’ he says, and the images play before his eyes as the words leave his lips. ‘it’s the kids disintegrating before my eyes while i’m powerless to stop it. it’s tomoyo getting killed under my watch. it’s celes collapsing and closing with you locked inside it.’

he pulls fai closer, wraps his other arm around his waist, and buries his nose in the mage’s soft, golden hair. it smells of soap and frost and incense, and something else kurogane can’t place.

‘i rarely have nice dreams,’ fai says, so quietly kurogane almost misses it. ‘i‘ve never had a single nice dream about my brother. it’s always been nightmares, about the tower, about his fall, about his body in the pool. i dream about ashura surrounded my a mountain of bodies, with you and the kids at the top of the pile. i dream of fei wang reed winning and the universes collapsing and imploding. i dream of you bleeding and bleeding and _bleeding_ , so much it seems impossible, and of sakura-chan dying and of syaoran-kun ripping my eyes out with tears in his eyes and mokona crying her heart out. the good nights are those when i don’t dream at all.’

kurogane says nothing, because what can he say to that? and the room falls into silence, the two taking comfort in each other, in knowing that they are alive, and they are safe, and those they love are, too.

after a while, when sleep finally starts tugging at his eyelids, and he can feel fai is also on the verge, kurogane says, ‘let’s visit the kids.’

‘yeah,’ fai says drowsily, and finally falls asleep.

‘yeah,’ kurogane says, mostly to himself, and does the same.


End file.
